Effiny Music

transcriptions by Susan Fancher.

www.susanfancher.com

Susan Fancher earned her Doctor of Music from Northwestern University, where she was a student of Dr. Frederick Hemke, and the Médaille d'Or from the conservatory in Bordeaux, France, where she studied with Monsieur Jean-Marie Londeix.  Susan Fancher is a regularly featured columnist for the online journal Saxophone Today.  She teaches saxophone and coaches chamber music at Duke University.

Susan Fancher is an internationally-recognized concert saxophonist known for her deep, poetic musical interpretations. She has performed in hundreds of concerts internationally as a soloist and as the member of chamber music ensembles, including the Red Clay, Amherst, Vienna and Rollin’ Phones saxophone quartets.  A much sought-after performer of new music,  Susan Fancher has inspired and premiered over 100 new works for saxophone.  She is an active recitalist, performing frequently with pianist Ināra Zandmane and presenting master classes as an artist clinician for the Selmer and Vandoren/DANSR companies.  She has performed in many of the world’s leading venues including Sala São Paulo, Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall,  London’s Queen Elizabeth Hall, Vienna’s Konzerthaus, Filharmonia Hall in Warsaw and the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts, just to name a few.  Tours have taken her to Albania, Austria, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, China, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Thailand and throughout the US.

In recent years, Susan Fancher has commissioned several composers to add to the growing repertoire of concertos for soprano saxophone.  The 2015-2016 season includes the premiere performance of the wind ensemble version of Mark Engebretson's Concerto for soprano saxophone, with the SUNY Fredonia Wind Ensemble, conducted by Paula Holcomb.  Past seasons featured the premiere of David Kirkland Garner's Concerto, based on Celtic themes, with the Duke Wind Symphony under the direction of Verena Mösenbichler-Bryant.  In April 2012, Susan Fancher premiered Mark Engebretson’s Concerto for soprano saxophone and orchestra in Sala São Paulo under the baton of Ligia Amadio.  Her May 2013 CD release “Of Erthe and Air: Susan Fancher and friends play music of Hilary Tann” (Arizona University Records CD 5014) features a live performance of Tann’s soprano saxophone concerto Shakkei with the Thailand Philharmonic Orchestra, performed in 2009 in Bangkok.  Together with a consortium of wind ensembles, she also commissioned and premiered the wind ensemble version of Michael Torke's Concerto for soprano saxophone.

Susan Fancher’s discography lists over twenty CDs on Arizona University Records, Philips, New World, Lotus Records Salzburg, Parma, Extraplatte and Innova Records.  Her newest releases are a full CD of saxophone music by Stuart Saunders Smith, released in September 2015 on Chen Li Music, and the Red Clay Quartet's 10th Anniversary Celebration CD released in 2016. Other recent recordings include Mark Engebretson's Duo Concertante together with saxophonist James Romain and the Drake University Wind Ensemble under the direction of Robert Meunier (released on the CD titled MOSAIC on Mark Records 50781-MCD).